Joan Lau, PhD

Joan Lau is currently Managing Partner of Militia Hill Ventures and COO of Immunome Inc. She has served as president and CEO with several venture-backed biotechnology companies, including clinical stage Azelon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Locus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a computational chemistry discovery company. Prior to Locus, Dr. Lau worked at Merck & Co, in leadership roles within R&D drug development and business development.

Dr. Lau has provided counsel or served in interim leadership roles with several startup life sciences companies, both as a consultant or in her role as Executive-in-Residence for BioAdvance, a funder of life sciences companies in southeastern Pennsylvania. She is the Associate Course Director for the Vagelos Program in Life Sciences Management. Students in the Vagelos Program receive dual degrees from the University of Pennsylvania from both the School of Arts and Sciences and the Wharton School. Additionally, Dr. Lau serves on the Advisory Board for Temple University’s Masters in Biotechnology program.

Dr. Lau earned an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. She also holds a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and a BS in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania.